interview by anna chotlos

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Which character from Dante’s Divine Comedy would you invite to dinner?... Geryon.

What is your go-to procrastination activity?... Napping.

If you were a breakfast cereal, what kind would you be?... Something with a prize.

What was the last dream you remember?... I was in a large brick building like a high school or a prison and there were many stairs leading to dead ends or to rooms I’d already been in. I couldn’t find my way.

Favorite spell from Harry Potter?... The one that he uses to control snakes?

What are you listening to right now?... The sound of my clock on the wall, cars driving past my house, and Etta James.

If you had to be trapped in the world of one book for the rest of your life, which book do you hope it would be?... World War Z.

What is the strangest advice you have been given?... Hm, the fact that nothing comes to mind may, sadly, say a lot about me (that I don’t listen to advice?). I mean, I think a lot of the “advice” given by the Catholic Church is strange. “Turn the other cheek.”  The church of chastity, masochism, human sacrifice, vampirism, zombie-ism, and cannibalism.

Who in the world would you most like to receive a letter from and why?... My Korean mother, because I haven’t seen her since I was six months old, and I miss her.

When did you know you were a writer?... When I wrote a poem for a class in my twenties and I got a funny feeling like a storm system all around the inside of my skull after writing it.

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Sun Yung Shin is a Korean-born poet living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her most recent collection of poems, Unbearable Splendor, was the winner of the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for poetry.